[Carlyle apologises for not having written sooner, saying he has been waiting until he has procured a copy of Stewart Lewis' poems which he now has] 'It is imperfect, but I believe wants only two pages at each end?and at any rate it [is] the best, indeed only one, I could get hold of.'
Upon reperusing the volume, I feel more and more confident, that it contains poems, which if properly selected and given to the world along with the other productions of its Author, would secure him both honour and emoluments: - I am not going to enter into any critical detail of their merits; but I cannot help [ob]serving, that had Lewis never written any thing else, than [the] ?verses on the death of an only son? - and the song ?Wandering Ma[ry?-] his title to the name of poet would have been undisputed. The volume indeed abounds with a strain of original thought and fee[ling] which is not always to be met with in books of the kind. [And] for the want of which, a thousand ban-dogs and dun-[de]er and donjon-keeps and Ladyes fair can never compensate'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carlyle Print: Book
